BOOT HILL BADDIES! Be the first in your cemetary to own our Undead Cowboy miniatures and a six-pack of resin graves.

Hawgleg is hittin’ the trail and hunting cowboy zombies in Transylvania this weekend. Or, more specifically, Gutshot co-creator Mike Mitchell will be attending UCon at the Little Church from Transylvania in Houston, Texas, and he’ll have a whole passel of stuff on hand from the upcoming game, Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood.

The convention is an all-day event: Saturday, Aug. 2, 2008 at the Northwest Community Unitarian Universalist Church (NWCUUC), 5920 Hwy 6 North Houston, TX 77084. This is in Northwest Houston near HWY 6 and West Little York. The convention is billed as a “Pop-Culture” event and, in addition to gaming, will feature comic books, science fiction, movies, anime, manga, and possibly even goth.

Hawgleg releases Zombies & Graves at UCon

In addition to the playtest, Mitchell will also unveil a few items from the Night of the Living Deadwood product line. Specifically, he will be selling miniatures and resin graves.

“We’ve had the miniatures ready to go for about a year now, and I think the graves have been ready even longer than that,” Mitchell revealed. “Our original plan was to hold these back and release everything with the rule book. But, after talking it over amongst ourselves, we’ve decided to just put it all out there right now.”

The miniatures pack includes four, unpainted 25mm undead cowboys and one “dead zombie” marker, for a total of five different figures. This pack will sell for $10 at the convention, or until supplies run out. Since these were cast before the recent increases in metal prices, the price will be slightly higher when they are recast in the future.

The “Six Pack of Graves” contains six assorted 25mm-30mm grave mounds with a marker (some markers appear to be wooden while others appear to be stone). There are actually nine sculpts scattered throughout the six packs. So, although there are no duplicates in a single bag, if you buy two bags you will get some duplicates. The graves are cast in bright white resin, are unpainted and sell for $5.

As a convention special, Hawgleg will pay the sales tax on all items.

“Truth be told, I don’t like messing with loose change,” Mitchell said. “So our bookkeeper figured out the tax for each item and juggled the numbers so we can charge even numbers for everything at our booth.”

Convention Deals

Although these items are being released at the convention first, they are not exclusive to it. In other words, we’ll put these items up on the Hawgleg Website sometime next week.

Undead cowboys and graves are just the first two items that will be released to support the forthcoming game, Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood.

“Just keep in mind that some of these items are in low quantities right now, so it may take us a week or two to restock them in the event that we sell out at UCon,” Mitchell said. “But rest assured, we’ll make these available to the public just as soon as we can.”

The (very) quick and the (very) dead

“This convention is a first for us in many ways,” Mitchell said. “This is the first time I’ll be running the Hawgleg booth at a convention that isn’t specifically focused on gaming. To be honest, I’ve no idea how receptive the crowd will be to miniatures gaming.”

Of course, it’s miniatures gaming with a twist. At 2 p.m. on Saturday Mitchell will run a special playtest game of Gutshot: Night of the Living Deadwood. This playtest will feature the first public test of the “fast zombies.” Right now he’s thinking of calling the game, “The (very) quick and the (very) dead.”

“The fast zombies have been one of the hardest things we’ve done in the Deadwood rules,” said Gutshot battle master Paul Mauer. “These creatures are very powerful and we have worked very hard to keep them from throwing the game out of balance.”

The Hawgleg Posse has been working on them privately for a long time now, and this is the first time they will be tested in public.

“This is the last major feature in Deadwood that we need to playtest,” Mauer explained. “After this Mitchell is going to start focusing on getting the final book ready for next year. We hope.”

Pop goes the culture

Mitchell said that it seemed “fitting” that the Deadwood merchandise would be released at “The Little Church from Transylvania.” The church, by the way, is called that because “Transylvania really was the site of the first Unitarian church,” said convention organizer Trey Wickman.

The convention will run from 9 a.m. – 7 p.m., and includes a healthy mix of board games, card games, RPGs, and more.

"I'm looking forward to this convention," Mitchell said. "When I was knee-high to a six-sider back in El Paso, we didn't have different conventions for comics, sci-fi, and RPGs. We just mashed them all together and had a great time. I'm kind of hoping this will be kinda like that, and give me a chance to meet some people who don't normally hang out in the Houston miniatures gaming community."

Mitchell also wanted to give thanks to Kerry Harrison for letting him know about the convention.

"Kerry is very active in the Houston gaming community, and I really appreciate him pushing me to get off my duff and make it to U-Con," Mitchell said. "With all the summer heat right now, it's very easy to sit at home under the AC and sip muh whiskey while watching old Westerns on TV. I reckon this con will be a lot more fun than that!"